While delaying the launch of Android 4.0 in the wake of Steve Jobs' passing, Google has filed an amicus curiae brief in parallel with US carrier T-Mobile, both of whom ask that the International Trade Commission not ban HTC's Android products, regardless of their infringement of Apple's intellectual property.

Instead, according to a report by FOSS Patents blogger Florian Mueller, Google threatens that "eliminating all of the major Android device manufacturers from the U.S.as Apple is attemptingwould allow Apple to establish a virtual monopoly in the mobile device industry."

Google specifically states that "excluding HTC Android devices from the U.S. would threaten the only open mobile platform developed and distributed in the U.S.," without clarifying that the primary value of HTC's Android products come from layers of proprietary software owned by Google and HTC, neither of which are any more open than Apple's iPhone iOS, Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 or RIM's BlackBerry OS.

T-Mobile seeks transition period from Android

T-Mobile 14 page brief to the court "asks the ITC to deny an import ban even if an infringement is found," Mueller reports, adding that the carrier recommends a transition period of four to six months if the ITC does decide to ban HTC's infringing phones.

With such a transition period, "T-Mobile and the rest of the industry could change to other devices without harming U.S. consumers," the carrier notes, without disputing that HTC's Android products are indeed infringing upon Apple's intellectual property.

Google, unsurprisingly, is not at all interested in accommodating a transition period that would favor non-infringing alternatives to Android, and opposes a ban of any kind in its own 80 page brief.

Google alarmed by iPhone's success

Google doesn't argue that Android isn't infringing Apple's technology, however. Instead, it warns that a ban would "eliminate the competition from a fast-moving, maverick competitor (HTC)," a shift that "could drive up prices, diminish service, decrease consumers' access to the technology, and reduce innovation."

Google also states that "Apple is the largest seller of mobile computing devices in the U.S.," a far different tune than it played last year when it portrayed Android as an unstoppable force that would steamroll Apple's smartphone with a superior product offered by a wide range of hardware makers, with unique support for Adobe's proprietary Flash.

Google's brief concludes that a preliminary injunction against the four HTC phones Apple claims to be infringing would "likely raise the price of mobile devices to U.S. consumers, diminish the variety of devices available, lower the number of consumers that have access to the critical public health and welfare benefits of mobile computing, reduce innovation in the mobile device industry, reduce the development of critical wireless network infrastructure, lower the number of mobile applications created, raise barriers to entry, and threaten the only open mobile computing platform."

Mueller notes, "All of that sounds great, but I doubt that it will persuade the ITC that patent infringement can be justified with the benefits of a competitive marketplace.

"There needs to be a balance between intellectual property and competition, and neither Google's nor T-Mobile's statement says how and where that balance should be struck. Both just advocate a free pass for Android."

Seriously they purposefully copied Apples iOS devices including the copyrighted or patented aspects. That can not be allowed to stand. Sadly it appears that they did this on purpose because they had no confidence in their own processes and software stack.

What really blows here is that Android had the makings of a really decent iPhone competitor but instead took a turn towards theft. No body at Google should be proud of what Android has become. Rather they should be embarrassed and ashamed that they took the route of the common criminal.

"Please sir, I know I coped from Tim in the exam and all, but if you fail me for that you will allow Jason a monopoly on A grades which threatens the future labour market enormously by limiting the choice of highly-qualified candidates!"

Just like Google's response to Microsoft over their licensing agreements with Android OEM's

This is the same tactic weve seen time and again from Microsoft. Failing to succeed in the smartphone market, they are resorting to legal measures to extort profit from others achievements and hinder the pace of innovation. We remain focused on building new technology and supporting Android partners.

They don't deny that Android infringes but rather jumps to the straw man argument of they cant compete so this is why they are doing x,y,z

"In March we told you 2011 would be the year of iPad 2, and it is, but we're starting 2012 early." - September 2011

"Please sir, I know I coped from Tim in the exam and all, but if you fail me for that you will allow Jason a monopoly on A grades which threatens the future labour market enormously by limiting the choice of highly-qualified candidates!"

While delaying the launch of Android 4.0 in the wake of Steve Jobs' passing, Google has filed an amicus curiae brief in parallel with US carrier T-Mobile, both of whom ask that the International Trade Commission not ban HTC's Android products, regardless of their infringement of Apple's intellectual property.

Oops! Until this remark, you were a shoe-in for the next Supreme Court vacancy.

I really can't tell if you're supporting my statement by referring to the ineptitude of the Supreme Court of the US, or opposing and saying that this wouldn't constitute precedent for other injunction cases.

HTC can replace Samsung handsets in that argument, Samsung can replace HTC handsets in this one.

Then what of the American patents Google obtained from Motorola and Palm and gave to HTC in Taiwan, how is giving American innovations to foreign companies benefitting American consumers?

The patents HTC bought from S3 and VIA are they "harming American consumers" by seeking to ban iPhone sales?

Google was pretty good when they first came out of Stanford, they provide a classic example of how money and power corrupts, it has turned them into hypocritical pedlars of any user data they can gather to sell to advertisers.

They have one goal similar to Microsoft's "Windows on every desktop" and that is "Google on every Internet connected device, watching, gathering, selling".

Better than my Bose, better than my Skullcandy's, listening to Mozart through my LeBron James limited edition PowerBeats by Dre is almost as good as my Sennheisers.

I really can't tell if you're supporting my statement by referring to the ineptitude of the Supreme Court of the US, or opposing and saying that this wouldn't constitute precedent for other injunction cases.

Neither. While it may be a precedent in certain situations, it most certainly would not "make[] all injunctions, regardless of validity, completely useless".

If this somehow was agreed by ITC, then it's pretty much end of patents as we know it. Anyone can freely copy a uniquely successful product in the market, because not allowing the copy to exist would allow that product to establish a virtual monopoly. Now maybe that's what Google wants, but we better not hear google later sue someone for copying their search engine.

In the best interest of competition, Google's Android should be removed from the market immediately. The continued active and passive theft that has occurred in the name of that platform should cease. It sends the wrong message to entrepreneurs, companies, developers, and the industry in general. It sends the message that STEALING is ok as long as it's wrapped in a corporate veil (with numerous lawyers hired to conceal the lies). We will ALL (even Android users) suffer if this wrong is not righted.

Seriously they purposefully copied Apples iOS devices including the copyrighted or patented aspects. That can not be allowed to stand. Sadly it appears that they did this on purpose because they had no confidence in their own processes and software stack.

What really blows here is that Android had the makings of a really decent iPhone competitor but instead took a turn towards theft. No body at Google should be proud of what Android has become. Rather they should be embarrassed and ashamed that they took the route of the common criminal.

First of all google did not copy iOS it is really sad some people are to ignorant to understand that. First of all the way the two OSs operate is totally different. Google uses a virtual machine called Dalvic very similar to java in order to interact with the soft ware and the hardware. iOS does not use a virtual machine to interact with software and hardware it is more direct on soft ware communicates with the machine language.

The next thing that is completely different about the OSs is the user interface. iOS goes the way of have no home screen and having the user doing everything directly from the app drawl. Android however does it a differently. Android does it similar to how Blackberry OS and Windows mobile have done it for years. Android has an App drawl that all the apps are placed in. Then it has a seperate homescreen that the user interacts with. this home screen contains the shortcut to applications and widgets this is similar to those previous OSs.

What happened was Android was being developed to compete with the then current heavy weights of the industry and was taking the best things from those OSs and makign android with it. At that time smartphones where keyboard based. Then the iPhone was Released and the demand for smartphones shifted. People did not want the keyboard based any more so as demand shifted so did did the androids offerings. Instead of offering an OS that would not even be desirable to consumers android was made touch orientated and DID COPY MULTITOUCH AND PINCH TO ZOOM however most of the things in the Os where virtually the same. Android being touch based does not make it an iOS copy. Having the grid of Icons is not because that was around far before iOS. If you use them both you will see the differences are vast.

I wonder what happened to "we're going to hold off on doing things out of respect for Steve Jobs"?

It was reported that way, but it was really more of a "we're going to hold off on unveiling Android 4.0 ICS out of respect for Steve Jobs' death because nobody will be paying attention to our announcements if we make them right now, and its not ready yet anyway, so this gives us an excuse to punt our release down the field a bit while avoiding criticism."

Android 4 looks primarily like a new iTunes clone Music app, a new G+ Facebook clone app, and the smartphone version of Honeycomb.